Other articles in Highlights High Five Parent/Teacher Guides

• Highlights High Five™ May 2009 Parent/Teacher Guide
• Highlights High Five™ April 2009 Parent/Teacher Guide
• Highlights High Five™ March 2009 Parent/Teacher Guide

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Highlights High Five™ April 2008 Parent/Teacher Guide

Put Them Together (pages 18 and 19)

• These questions and illustrations will help children discover what happens when two groups of objects are joined together.
• These math stories also illustrate in, up, over, and under.
• After counting and talking about the groups of animals on these pages, encourage children to draw additional stories. For example, they could show 3 spiders in a tree and 3 running toward it for a total of 6 spiders.

Illustrated "story problems" help children see and count groups of objects to find the sum. Older children can turn them into number sentences, for example, 3 + 2 = 5.

Knock! Knock! (pages 21 to 24)

• This rhyming story presents a variation on the classic "knock-knock" joke. Encourage children to listen for the rhyming words in each question-and-answer segment.
• After reading the story, focus the children's attention on the last page. Ask: "Why do you think the girl decided to not open the door at the end? What type of animal do you think is knocking on the door? What helped you decide?"
• The illustration on page 24 shows all the animals that came to the girl's door. Use this illustration to help the children recall the sequence of events.

Rhyming stories help children pay close attention to the ending sounds of words as they listen for the words that rhyme. List the rhyming pairs, and challenge children to think of other words that rhyme with each pair.

Build It (page 35)

• Talk about the illustration. Ask: "What types of blocks did this boy use? Why doesn't the second floor of the parking garage fall down?"
• Explain that the boy used ramps to move cars to the second and third floor of his parking garage.

Sometimes children need help to get started when they work with open-ended materials such as blocks. This monthly feature provides examples of possible projects and questions that help organize the task for young builders. By discussing the illustration and the questions, they will learn how to plan their own construction projects.